tinyproxy 1.7.0 review

tinyproxy is a lightweight HTTP proxy licensed under the GPL. Designed from the ground up to be fast and yet small, it is an ideal solution for sites where a full-featured HTTP proxy is required, but the system resources required to run a more demanding HTTP proxy are unavailable. tinyproxy is fully compatible with all existing web browsers.

Here are some key features of "tinyproxy":
Anonymous mode

Allows you to specify which HTTP headers should be allowed through, and which should be blocked - this allows you to restrict both what data comes to your web browser from the HTTP server (eg, cookies), and to restrict what data is allowed through from your web browser to the HTTP server (eg, version information).

Easily modified

If you're looking to build a custom web proxy, tinyproxy is very easy to modify to your custom needs - the source is straightforward, adhering to the KISS principle. As such, it can be used as a foundation for anything you may need a web proxy to do (send patches!)

Remote monitoring

Using the remote monitoring feature, you can access proxy statistics from afar, letting you know exactly how busy the proxy is.

Load average monitoring

tinyproxy can be configured to watch the load average on most platforms, and start refusing requests when the load reaches a certain point - you may recognize this feature from sendmail.

Access control

You can configure tinyproxy to only allow requests from a certain subnet, or from a certain interface, thus allowing you to ensure that random, unauthorized people will not be using your proxy.

Secure

With a bit of configuration (specifically, making the log file owned by nobody and running it on a port >1024), tinyproxy can be made to run without any special privileges, thus minimizing the chance of system compromise. Furthermore, it was designed with an eye towards preventing buffer overflows. The simplicity of the code ensures it remains easy to spot such bugs.

Small footprint

As mentioned above, tinyproxy requires very little in the way of system resources - the memory footprint tends to be around 2MB with glibc, and the CPU load increases linearly with the number of simultaneous connections (depending on the speed of the connection). Thus, tinyproxy can be run on a spare, older machine, or even a workstation, without any noticeable impact on performance.